About

What We Do

The National Mental Health Innovation Center looks beyond our current mental healthcare system – to find bold new solutions that can be quickly and effectively scaled to help more people, earlier.

That’s our purpose, even our calling. With an estimated one in five Americans struggling with mental illness or substance abuse every year, we can’t settle for less than real innovation. Especially when 80% of those with illness don’t get the care they need.

Our workplaces, schools and communities can’t be at their best when a significant percentage of people lack mental wellness. So, we are forging partnerships with unexpected people in unexpected places to tackle this. Together we find, develop and test these emerging evidence-based solutions to bring them to scale. What we can’t find, we’ll create.

Today, our core areas of work fall in to two main categories: technology and real-life settings.

We are finding that use of digital technology has the power to improve mental health outcomes and smash barriers to care. And we are working with community partners in real-life settings because we believe it takes healthcare and non-healthcare professionals to equip people with skills for good mental health. Check out our Projects to see tangible efforts in these areas.

What do we do? We create the future of mental health.

History

In October of 2015, the idea for the NMHIC was put to paper and the proposal to create a home for bold innovation in mental health was submitted to the Anschutz Foundation, which soon after generously funded the startup Center. read more…

Give Us Your Ideas

We are committed to searching for and promoting powerful, emerging approaches that get more help to more people, earlier. We also know there is much to learn and that we can’t do it alone. We call that our Unknown Unknowns. read more...